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Both candidates vying to represent southeast Lincoln and Lancaster County in Nebraska's Legislature will appear on the ballot as a legislative candidate for the first time this November — though one of them has already been in office for 18 months.

Sen. Carolyn Bosn, a Republican whom Gov. Jim Pillen appointed to replace former Sen. Suzanne Geist in April 2023 following Geist's resignation, is asking voters to send her back to the statehouse for a full four-year term in the formally nonpartisan Legislature where she has emerged as a leading voice on public safety issues.

Nicki Behmer Popp, a registered nonpartisan who has served on the Lincoln Airport Authority since 2021, is seeking to unseat the unelected incumbent in part by painting Bosn as beholden both to the governor who appointed her and to "an extreme party line."

"There's a lot of Republicans in the district that don't feel like the party they know is being represented," said Behmer Popp, who emphasized that her disagreements with Bosn are strictly political, not personal, adding that Bosn "is a very nice person."

Bosn, meanwhile, insisted that she does "not answer to the governor," billing herself instead as "an independent thinker" who is willing to challenge her own policy positions — and whose "record shows that I'm willing to do that," she said. She was one of few conservative lawmakers who urged Pillen to reconsider his decision to rebuff federal summer grocery aid for low-income families.

"I think that filling the remaining portion of Sen.��Geist's term has truly been a privilege — and I'm grateful for that opportunity," she said. "But now I'm just working hard to show my constituents how hard I'm willing to work for this position and how hard I'm willing to work for them to keep Nebraska a great place to live."

Behmer Popp's bid to draw moderate conservatives by casting Bosn as "extreme" reflects the political realities of District 25, which includes a large swath of southeast Lincoln and Lancaster County, including the village of Bennet.

The district runs as far north as Van Dorn Street and as far south as Roca Road. Its westernmost edge stops at 40th Street and the district is bordered in the east by the Lancaster-Otoe county line.

The GOP holds a strong voter registration advantage that was largely unaffected by redistricting in 2021. District 25 , including 15,659 Republicans, 9,053 Democrats and 6,714 nonpartisans.

Bosn has also outspent Behmer Popp by a wide margin in the race. The incumbent's campaign has spent $324,282 this year through Oct. 21, largely on mail, radio and digital advertisements, according to campaign finance disclosure filings.

Her top donors include conservative megadonors Thomas and Shawn Peed, two members of the family behind Sandhills Global, who have each donated $25,000 or more to Bosn's campaign.

Behemer Popp's campaign has spent $192,074 this year through Oct. 21, primarily on producing and circulating mail and digital advertisements, according to campaign finance records.

Her top donors include the Children's PAC, an Omaha political action committee linked to the Holland Children's Institute, and the Wyoming-based Way Back PAC, .��Both groups have donated more than $20,000 to Behmer Popp's campaign.

Bosn: 'I bring a perspective Nebraska really needs'

Years before she found herself running for political office, Bosn, 42, had made a career in public service, working as a prosecutor in the Lancaster County Attorney's Office for eight years before she stepped away in 2017 to raise her four children.

She remained a stay-at-home mom — while volunteering at her kids' schools and as the coach of the competitive trial team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she also taught one night a week at the College of Law — until Pillen appointed her to the Legislature.

"When this opportunity came up, I saw it ... as a way to give back to the community," Bosn said.

A Columbus High School graduate with a political science degree from Baylor University and a law degree from Creighton, Bosn took the reins from Geist in the middle of a tumultuous legislative session in 2023 and has since emerged as a quietly effective policymaker, particularly in the realm of public safety.

In her first full session as a lawmaker this year, Bosn passed three bills outright, including one championed by Nebraska's attorney general that allows judges to freeze assets linked to fraud or deceptive practice cases under the Consumer Protection Act and allows for jury trials in such cases.

Portions of other bills Bosn introduced — including one that placed Nebraska's Division of Parole under the purview of the state's prison system and another that established a career readiness certificate pilot program within the system — were included in a criminal justice package lawmakers passed.

In other moments, she has been near the center of controversy.

Bosn was among seven conservative lawmakers who, after voting to pass a "harm reduction" bill in February that would have allowed local jurisdictions in Nebraska to distribute hypodermic needles to drug users, flipped their votes weeks later and sided with the governor amid an attempt to override his veto.

A week later, the sponsor of the needle bill tried to revive it by amending it onto a bill Bosn had introduced that would have enhanced penalties for drug dealers tied to overdoses. Before lawmakers could vote on the amendment, Bosn asked the Legislature to skip to the next item on that day's agenda, sinking her own legislation.

As she seeks her first full term in the Legislature, Bosn said her main focus remains on public safety. She is among lawmakers who have sat on a state task force exploring sentencing reforms, which she said has come up with a framework of "comprehensive" bipartisan reform.

"I think working on public safety is something I'm familiar with, given my background, but also something I can be a strong advocate for on both sides," she said.

Bosn hopes to bring a similar approach to property tax relief, the issue she said she has heard the most about from District 25 voters. She mentioned a proposal to expand Nebraska's homestead exemption program to provide targeted tax relief to owner-occupied property.

"The best plan, realistically, is going to come from something that's on both sides of the aisle," she said.

The former prosecutor is also aiming to take up issues including broadband expansion, artificial intelligence and the impact of social media use on youths if voters send her back to the Capitol, where she hopes to draw on her experience in the courtroom, the classroom and in her family's small business.

"I bring a perspective that I think Nebraska really needs," she said.

Behmer Popp: I want to 'give the voice back to Nebraska citizens'

A Hastings native and Realtor who first rose to public office by capturing a seat on Lincoln's Airport Authority three years ago, Behmer Popp, 40, is hoping 2025 marks a homecoming of sorts.

The mother of two worked in the Legislature's public information office in 2010.

"It kind of gets at the heart of why I am an independent," Behmer Popp said, describing herself as "really impressed by Nebraska's unique form of governance."

"I really appreciated the nonpartisan approach that the Legislature took to different bills and just the way that people worked together," she said. "I really prided myself, when I worked there, about how I could tell people that we really saw people working together."

It also gets at the heart of why Behmer Popp is running to represent District 25 in the state's single-house Legislature.

The Hastings College alumna who earned a graduate degree at UNL said she has watched the nonpartisan nature of the Legislature begin to be dismantled by a crop of lawmakers who she said "have really succumbed to the national rhetoric."

"I think that that's really the motivator behind why I want to return, is to really give the voice back to Nebraska citizens versus the powers that be," she said.

Behmer Popp announced her run for office in July 2023, a month after the Legislature ended a tumultuous 88-day session that was defined by grievance and yielded a bill that further restricted access to abortion in the state and banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors. (Bosn who voted for the bill).

Now, as she canvasses southeast Lincoln and Bennet, Behmer Popp said divisive partisanship is "one of the top things I hear about" from voters who she said feel like lawmakers in Lincoln have adopted the mindset of politicians in Washington, D.C.

"They are tired of the inability to make any sort of meaningful reform," she said. "It seems like there is a strong push to introduce wedge legislation ... intentionally dividing people on social issues. And not for any meaningful reason other than, again, the rhetoric. It's a waste of time and money spent."

Instead, she said, voters would like to see lawmakers tackle economic and infrastructure issues, including housing, child care and labor shortages that plague Nebraska.

Behmer Popp said she hopes to take up child care issues as a lawmaker, which she said would directly impact Nebraska's labor shortage, since the state's lack of child care availability .

She is also aiming to be an advocate for public school funding, she said, making sure lawmakers "honor" the outcome of November's ballot initiative vote over whether to repeal a new state law that sets aside $10 million of tax dollars for private school scholarships.

And she hopes to take up property taxes, a perennial goal for lawmakers that was the subject of a special legislative session this summer that ended without a substantial fix.

Like Bosn, Behmer Popp pointed to a proposal to expand Nebraska's homestead exemption program that an Omaha lawmaker introduced in July, when it stalled in the Legislature's Revenue Committee dominated by conservatives who instead rallied around a plan backed by Pillen.��

"I've not heard a single negative to what that (bill) would have done," Behmer Popp said. "It's a great question: Why didn't that get support? And the answer to that is because it didn't come from the governor's office.

"And that is a huge problem and the heart at why we need change."